INTERVIEW: A FATE SHAPED BY INJUSTICE – ONE MAN’S MISSION TO HELP THE WOMEN OF DR CONGO

18 March 2016 – When a woman arrived at his hospital about 17 years
ago with her genitals destroyed by gunshots, Dr. Denis Mukwege ruled it
an isolated incident.

“But after six months, I realized many other patients kept coming
with almost the same story: ‘I was raped, and then they pierced me with
a bayonet,’ ‘I was raped, and then they burned rubber on my genitals,’”
the Congolese gynaecologist told the UN News Centre recently.

Genital mutilation, he discovered, was being used as a weapon of war
in the deadly conflict of the late 1990s between various armed groups
and the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This
shocking discovery changed the course of Dr. Mukwege’s career.

“We just happened to stumble upon this situation,” he said, adding
that it led him to make an immediate decision – to devote himself to
reconstructive surgery for female victims of sexual violence. It was a
path that would eventually put his life, and those of his loved ones, in
danger.

Now, some 17 years later, Dr. Mukwege’s unwavering commitment has led
him to treat more than 40,000 victims at his hospital in Panzi, a
district of Bukavu, his hometown in the province of South Kivu, in the
eastern DRC.

Dubbed by the press as “the man who mends women,” Dr. Mukwege has
gained international recognition for his work and earned many
prestigious distinctions, including the United Nations Prize in the
Field of Human Rights in 2008 and the Sakharov prize in 2014. At 59, he
has also been shortlisted several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In February, as a sign of his appreciation for Dr. Mukwege’s fight to end sexual violence against women, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made time during a brief visit to the DRC to hold a private meeting with him.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) meets with Dr. Mukwege
during a February 2016 visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. UN
Photo/Eskinder Debebe

On the path to healing

There was an earlier tragedy that also steered Dr. Mukwege on his
path. He was born in 1955 in Bukavu to a Pentecostal family of nine
children. As a teenager, he used to follow his father, a pastor, while
on his daily visits.

One day, his father was called to the bedside of a sick child.

“After praying, he began to pack up and was about to leave,” recalled
Dr. Mukwege. “But I told him, ‘No Daddy! When I’m sick, you pray, but
you also give me medicine.’”

His father replied that he was not a doctor.

“Suddenly, it was like an eye-opener, and I told myself, I want to be a doctor to do what my father didn’t.”

The child eventually died of his illness.

The women we treat are only the tip of the iceberg because
many of them are afraid to say they have been raped for fear of being
rejected by their husbands.

Years later, after graduating from medical school in Burundi, Dr.
Mukwege returned to South Kivu and started his career as a paediatrician
at the Lemera Hospital, about 100 kilometres away from Bukavu.

While at the hospital, he was shocked to discover the extent of the
pain of women who, in the absence of proper care, often suffered serious
genital lesions after giving birth. He decided to go back to school to
study gynaecology and obstetrics in France, before returning to Lemera
in the late 1980s.

With the outbreak of the First Congo War in what was then known as
Zaire in 1996 and the spreading of fighting to South Kivu, Dr. Mukwege
found himself on the shifting frontlines.

One day he arrived at the Lemera Hospital only to find out that all
of his patients had been murdered. It took him a long time to recover
from this experience.

“It took me two years before I felt I could be useful again,” he
said. “People can’t imagine how much we feel responsible for our
patients. And then, someone comes and kills them in their beds!”

Dr. Mukwege himself was not immune to the violence. While he was
transporting a patient who needed to be evacuated to Sweden, his car
came under fire. He and the other passengers survived the shooting
unharmed.

In the wake of these incidents, feeling unable to continue working at
Lemera Hospital, Dr. Mukwege returned to his hometown of Bukavu, where
he founded the Panzi Hospital in 1999. This was shortly before his
discovery of the extent of sexual violence in eastern DRC.

Sexual violence as a weapon of war

A report by the Secretary-General that was issued in March 2015
showed that the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war is an ongoing
reality in the DRC.

It found that, from January to September 2014, 11,769 cases of sexual
and gender-based violence were recorded by the UN in the DRC provinces
of North Kivu, South Kivu, Orientale, Katanga and Maniema – 39 per cent
of which were considered to be directly related to the dynamics of
conflict, perpetrated by armed individuals.

“As in 2013, North Kivu and Orientale remain the provinces most
affected by conflict-related sexual violence,” the report stated, adding
that 69 per cent of all confirmed cases of conflict-related sexual
violence were perpetrated by armed groups and the remaining 31 per cent
by members of Government security forces.

According to Dr. Mukwege, it is very difficult to obtain reliable
data on the phenomenon, due to the fact that sexual violence was, and
still is, a taboo for the victims.

“The women we treat are only the tip of the iceberg because many of
them are afraid to say they have been raped for fear of being rejected
by their husbands,” he said, adding that, although the fighting has now
abated in the eastern DRC, the issue of sexual violence by armed groups
there is still a reality.

The taboo surrounding rape victims is deeply rooted in Congolese
society, and perpetrators, some of whom live alongside their victims,
are rarely held accountable.

“The woman, she knows the guy who lives across the street. She sees
him every morning and, unfortunately, he’s never had to face the
consequences for his actions,” Dr. Mukwege noted.

Dr. Denis Mukwege talks about as a weapon of war, which has destroyed communities (March 2011). Credit: OHCHR

Over the years, he has developed what he refers to as a “holistic”
approach to treating victims, one that involves taking into account both
the surgical and psychological dimensions of their suffering, as well
as issues concerning rehabilitation and justice.

“We first started by limiting ourselves to pure medical care, but we
quickly realized that after being treated, the women refused to eat,
drink, live and were dying from a form of suicide,” he said.

As a result, the hospital hired a team of psychologists and social
workers to work with patients before they go through reconstructive
surgery. But the treatment extends beyond medical care.

In order for patients to be able to reintegrate into their
communities and live with a degree of independence, Dr. Mukwege and his
team also work in collaboration with non-governmental organizations that
provide victims with economic support.

“We’ve found that when they are doing well physically, when they feel
strong enough psychologically and when they are economically
independent, that’s when women start seeking justice,” said Dr. Mukwege,
who created, for that purpose, a legal clinic to help women regain
their rights and take the perpetrators to court.

However, his willingness to break the silence surrounding sexual
violence against women in eastern DRC has made him the target of many
death threats. He has survived several assassination attempts, including
a shooting at his private consultation office in Bukavu – fortunately,
he had not been present at the time.

“What am I doing to escape these? Not much,” he said. “Today, I am
protected by MONUSCO [the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC], which we’re
grateful for at the hospital, especially given some of my other staff
members have also been kidnapped, tortured and raped.”

While the presence of UN peacekeepers makes him and his staff feel
safer, Dr. Mukwege admits that the conditions in which he has to perform
his daily work in Bukavu are challenging.

UN Messenger of Peace Charlize Theron (centre) shakes hands
with one of the patients in Panzi Hospital, accompanied by Dr. Mukwege,
during a visit to DRC in 2009. UN Photo/Marie Frechon

Ensuring voices are heard, lives honoured

Last September, the Congolese authorities initially prohibited the
release of a documentary film centred on his professional journey and
the Panzi Hospital.

“This is a film that shows the strength of Congolese women, their
ability to support themselves, their resilience,” said Dr. Mukwege,
adding that he was dumbfounded by the authorities’ censorship. “Women
have a much more powerful inner strength than those who are trying to
destroy them.”

Directed by Thierry Michel and Colette Braeckman, ‘The Man Who Mends
Women – The Wrath of Hippocrates’ was screened at UN Headquarters in New
York in October 2015, in the presence of Dr. Mukwege. A few days
earlier, according to press reports, the Congolese Government announced
it had lifted its ban on the movie.

Women have a much more powerful inner strength than those who are trying to destroy them.

“We can’t make progress unless we recognize first that there is a
problem. When one remains in the culture of denial, it is extremely
dangerous, because it is a way to let women suffer on their own,” he
said.

There have been steps in the right direction, he noted. “We have more
and more women who not only speak, but also take a stand and become
women’s rights activists,” he said. Also, in July 2014, the country’s
President, Joseph Kabila, appointed an adviser on conflict-related
sexual violence and child recruitment – a sign that the country is
slowly waking up to the issue of sexual violence in conflict, according
to observers.

But, according to ‘the man who mends women,’ much remains to be done
before claiming victory, and the international community must redouble
its efforts in the fight against conflict-related sexual violence. He
also stressed that such violence cannot be considered as just a women’s
issue or a feminist issue.

“What is our humanity worth if people can sell other people to make
sexual use of them, to turn them into sex slaves?” Dr. Mukwege asked.
“Our society has to say stop and draw a line in the sand: some acts are
such that society as a whole must oppose them.”

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